Hello there, we’ve been expecting you. Thank you for joining us at Casa Cinco.

This week we’re talking about optimizing human connection, the next frontier of entrepreneurship and investing, and the sharing of ideas. Most importantly, we’re asking you for help on how we can improve our newsletter. Happy reading!

Also, look out for a Casa Cinco pivot soon 👀 more coming.

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Andy

HAPPENING AT CASA CINCO

While we move things around a bit on the back end, “what’s happening” at Casa Cinco is that we need your help. How can we improve?

FOR INSPIRATION

On a recent episode of Invest Like the Best, Patrick O’Shaughnessy interviews Robin Dunbar on optimizing human connection. Now that sounds interesting.

Robin Dunbar is the anthropologist behind the infamous Dunbar’s number, a theory about the human capacity to maintain up to 150 stable relationships at once. Think of it as your ideal wedding guest list size.

Putting aside the number itself, which has been highly debated, it’s interesting to listen to Dunbar on how to optimize for human connection. Paraphrasing the key takeaways applicable to business:

• Human connection = good business: You can’t force relationships, but you can provide the infrastructure for these to flourish. However, given employee connection is not yet a key KPI or a line item in our P&Ls, many of the clubs, events, and spaces that business leaders had traditionally provided employees with to foster trust and relationships have been replaced with virtual coffee chats (🤢). Yet that virtual coffee chat is probably making the new employee living in a new city feel extremely lonely. How will we, as a business, provide the tools, infrastructure, and culture for that person to feel connected?

• Exclusion Thoughtful inclusion: Generating connection is necessary, but don’t mistake it for an ‘everyone’s invited’ mentality. If everyone’s invited to the meeting, the quality of the meeting will be diluted and your team will be less efficient. Be strategic on who you invite to meetings and don’t attend those where you don’t add any value (i.e. don’t be a part of the problem)

• Diversity is great… but greater at certain levels: The human tendency for homophily makes diversity challenging - so it’s best to be strategic about it. For instance: Struggling to hire junior female bankers? Check how many senior female bankers you have. None? OK, so fix your retention first, introduce diversity into your decision-making processes, and then see how much easier it becomes to encourage diversity at the junior level

In short: humans are inherently social beings, whether that means we have 5, 15, 150, or 5,000 friends. Yes, perks, parks, and pets help with employee satisfaction. But could we generate even better business by prioritizing human connection?

FOR CONVERSATION

At Casa Cinco, we’re exploring what the next frontier of entrepreneurship and investment looks like. Most of us are familiar with PE, VC, and perhaps angel investing. Maybe some with search funds (“entrepreneurship through acquisition”). Definitely all with ESG, D&I, and impact (note: still a lot of work to be done here). But… what’s next?

A little teaser: curating connection. We believe the next frontier of entrepreneurship and investing will be centered around the human need to belong and connect. This is not about connecting online but offline - with our purpose, with people, and with our planet (mainly products and places).

So, how can we leverage entrepreneurship and investing to generate connection? The answer may lie in solving for the what (i.e. build or invest in companies that prioritize human connection)… but we think it lies in solving for the how (i.e. it’s not via PE, VC, angel investing, or search funds, but something else).

While we continue to work on our thesis - what does curating connection mean to you? If you’re interested in exploring the subject further, reply to this email sharing your thoughts and lets continue the conversation.

FOR ACTION

What’s more important, the idea or the execution?

Hopefully 99% of you agree it’s execution. However, that doesn’t deny the importance of ideas. It simply means the importance of an idea doesn’t lie in the existence of the idea itself. Instead, the importance of an idea lies in its shareability.

Ideas create ripple effects. Look at the diagram below. Each pin is a person, and each circle (or ripple) is an idea they had. Sharing these ideas will eventually overlap or build off other people’s ideas. That is where magic happens - at the intersection between the ripples.

“But what if the idea is taken from me?” Well, what does that even mean? In the best case scenario, your idea sparked something in someone - whether that’s valuable feedback, another idea, or an AHA! moment. In the “worst case” scenario, a person turns your idea into a business of their own. You thought you’d never have competition because you had an idea?

Don’t limit yourself to your own mind. Share ideas selflessly and boldly. You never know what may be in it for you and others (as an example: yours truly. You think we could have evolved Casa Cinco on our own ideas only? We’re not that clever!).

We’ll talk soon. Thank you for joining us at Casa Cinco

Want to connect? Schedule a quick chat with Andy.

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